Lawrence Clayton attended Duke University (B.A., 1964), and earned his M.A. (1969) and Ph.D. (1972) at Tulane University in Latin American History. From 1964-1966 he served as an officer in the U.S. Navy on the USS Donner (LSD-20). Clayton has been on the faculty of the University of Alabama since 1972. He directed the Latin American Studies Program from 1980 to 1992. In 1979-1980 he was a special history consultant to W. R. Grace and Co. in New York. He was appointed Chairman of the Department of History in 2000. Clayton held two Senior Fulbright Lecturing Awards, one in 1983 to Costa Rica and one in 1988 to Peru where he lectured at the University of Costa Rica and the University of Lima… respectively. He is a member of the history honorary, Phi Alpha Theta, and Omicron Delta Kappa, the leadership honorary. In 1983 he served as President of the South Eastern Council on Latin American Studies. In 1999 he held a year-long Pew Evangelical Scholars Fellowship to continue work on his biography of Father Bartolome de las Casas (1485-1566). Some of his publications include LOS ASTILLEROS DE GUAYAQUIL COLONIAL (Guayaquil, Ecuador, 1978), CAULKERS AND CARPENTERS IN A NEW WORLD (Athens, Ohio, 1980), THE BOLIVARIAN NATIONS (Arlington Heights, Illinois, 1984), ALABAMA AND THE BORDERLANDS: FROM PREHISTORY TO STATEHOOD (Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 1985), GRACE, W. R. GRACE AND CO., THE FORMATIVE YEARS, 1850-1930 (Ottawa, Illinois, 1985), THE HISPANIC EXPERIENCE IN NORTH AMERICA: SOURCES FOR STUDY IN THE UNITED STATES (Columbus, Ohio, 1992), THE DESOTO CHRONICLES (Tuscaloosa, 1993), A HISTORY OF MODERN LATIN AMERICA (Fort Worth, 1999), and PERU AND THE UNITED STATES: THE CONDOR AND THE EAGLE (Athens, Georgia, 1999). A longer translation, PERU Y LOS EE.UU., 1800-1995 was published in Lima, Peru by the Centro Peruano de Estudios Internacionales in 1998. A second edition appeared in 2002.
Michael Conniff is the director of the Global Studies Institute at San Jose State University, where he promotes curriculum reform, faculty and staff development, exchanges with foreign universities, and programs to prepare students to succeed as citizens and professionals in the world at large. Conniff earned degrees at UC-Berkeley and Stanford (Ph.D. 1976) and has published a number of books on modern history, most recently A HISTORY OF MODERN LATIN AMERICA (with Lawrence Clayton), AFRICANS IN THE AMERICAS (with T. J. Davis), and POPULISM IN LATIN AMERICA. He has lived overseas for a dozen years, has held several post-doc appointments (including three Fulbright tours), and served in the… U.S. Peace Corps. He lectures often in Portuguese and Spanish. Before joining SJSU, he taught history at the University of New Mexico and created Latin American studies programs at Auburn University and the University of South Florida.